


His Ghastly End

by Ancalime1



Series: Unnamed Astronaut AU [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Astronaut AU, Astronauts, Gen, Outer Space, Space AU, Whump, he's fine though it's fine, jane and thor are Good and jane looks out for her own, meanwhile bruce is just like. ded, rip bruce, using up all them that there tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 04:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime1/pseuds/Ancalime1
Summary: Death, Bruce thought, was something he could get used to.





	His Ghastly End

**Author's Note:**

> Not much to say here, other than a content warning for an in-depth description of suffocation. Trust me, I hated myself for writing it :')

**JANE.**

Commander Jane Foster was at a loss.

Dr. Banner— _Bruce_ —had missed his nightly check-in. That in itself wasn’t the problem—Jane knew Bruce, knew how carried away he could get, how he would become so easily absorbed in his work and how time seemed to stop ticking for him.

The problem was that he hadn’t yet contacted her and apologized for the error. A full nine hours had passed since his scheduled check-in, which was more than enough time for him to realize his mistake and report to her. And he was nothing if not shrewd, even if he was a bit on the clumsier side. No, this was something bigger than clumsiness. Dr. Banner was hiding something.

Jane ducked out of her quarters and made her way down the winding halls of the palace. Damn, these Asgardians sure liked their sweeping corridors. Not that she didn’t mind the overall tapestry-laden and gold-leafed aesthetic, as the people of Asgard certainly had an eye for beauty. It was just that, well, she  _was_  in a bit of a hurry, so it’d have been swell if these hallways would get to the point.

She was just about to round a corner when another wayward Asgardian apparently thought to do the same. A small “oof!” escaped her as she walked smack into the armor-clad son of Odin, which was the rough equivalent of walking into a brick wall as far as painfulness goes.

Thankfully, this particular Odinson was a bit more polite than a brick wall. “Sorry!” He blurted out, raising his hands in apology. “I—er, I didn’t see you there.”

“Oh, me neither,” laughed Jane, awkwardly flicking a strand of hair out of her face. What was his name again? Thor? That sounded right. “Uh, you’re fine,” she continued. “I was just on my way to check on my crew.”

A small smile flicked across Thor’s face. “I was just about to ask you about that, coincidentally,” he said.

Jane narrowed her eyes, suddenly very suspicious. “What do you mean?”

“Your colleague, Dr. Banner,” he ventured. “I was wondering where might be lately. Is it customary for him to stay off-planet?”

 _Why do you care?_  Was the immediate thought that crossed her mind. Not that that was any of her business, she supposed—just that she was, well, admittedly somewhat protective of her crew.

“He doesn’t mean any disrespect by it,” she said, dodging the question. “Dr. Banner is a bit more on the reclusive side. I’m just on my way to check up on him, see if he needs anything. Standard protocol, nothing to be alarmed about.”

“Let me come with you,” Thor blurted out. He looked surprised at himself for saying this aloud, to Jane’s amusement—not typical, she assumed, for someone with a nefarious ulterior motive. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I mean, I’m just concerned about him. We’ve been spending some time together—when he’s here that is—and I’m concerned about him as well. And I thought, well, perhaps if you needed help—”

Jane’s mouth twitched. It was possible she might have misjudged the Odinson (or at least, this particular Odinson). “I suppose there’s no harm in it,” she said, resisting the urge to fidget under Thor’s gaze, because boy was this guy intense. “Yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem. Just head with me to the shuttle, and we’ll get on up there.”

“Wonderful,” said Thor, his eyes sparkling with gratitude.

He followed her out of the palace, Jane smirking to herself along the way.

————————-

**BRUCE.**

He began to heave several broken gasps as the oxygen escaped his body, feeling as if a pair of long scaly claws had reached down into his throat and tugged it out from within his lungs. Tears hung in the space between his face and his visor, glimmering like specters in his field of vision. Panic began to seize him, and he could  _feel_  it, he could feel it seeping from his brainstem and into his prefrontal cortex, corrupting his rational thought and loosening his control. He felt hot—God, he felt like he was burning  _alive_ —and his immediate instinct was to tear his helmet off, and to gasp desperately into the oxygen-deprived air.

Whatever ounce of control he had left in him stopped him from doing it, stopped him from breaking out of his quarantine and contaminating the space around him. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t question it. It didn’t matter. All that mattered now was the end. The end was coming. The end without an after. And, oh God. Oh, God. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t  _breathe_ …

By some mercy, his hearing began to fail him, so that his broken gasps were suddenly smothered into silence. The fire that flickered in his fingertips and the boiling in his veins began to fade as well, and, despite being suspended in weightlessness, he began to feel himself sinking, falling backward into heavy darkness.

He felt nothing but numbness drenching his body, and the dull thud of his heartbeat slowing against his chest. And then, very suddenly, he felt nothing.

His vision was the last thing to go. And if he had still been alive to comprehend it, he would have noticed the suited figure hovering there before him.

————————- 

**JANE.**

The recording had been rigged to play as soon as Jane’s shuttle had locked onto Dr. Banner’s. The commander had wasted no time in suiting up once it had finished—she was going to go and retrieve him, contamination be damned. She could have kicked herself, really. How could she have let this happen? Dr. Banner was her charge, her responsibility. How could she have done this to one of her crew?

“You’re going in there?” said Thor, his arms crossed from his place by the dash.

“I am.”

“Despite him specifically telling you not to.”

“That’s correct.”

Thor pushed himself up from his seat, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. “Let me help you.”

Jane paused, then shook her head. “I need you in here, in case something goes wrong,” she said, her voice hard. _I’m his commanding officer. I need to be the one to do this._

Thor nodded, as if he had read her mind. She didn’t know why, but this in particular had caused her eyes to tear up. She dug a gloved fist into her eye and turned away.

“Um. You’ll be able to hear me on comms once I’m in, so keep your ears open,” she said, swallowing hard. “Hopefully this won’t take too long.”

A nod. “Roger that.”

Jane gave him a surprised look, then scoffed. “Surprised that’s in your vernacular,” she murmured, fumbling with her helmet.

Thor gave her a soft smile. “Well, it wasn’t until I met all of you.” He paused then, his expression suddenly quite unreadable. “Commander Foster…”

“Jane.”

“Right, Jane.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath. “Bring him back to us, okay? I’m… I’m really quite fond of him.”

Jane nodded, her mouth a thin line. “So am I,” she said, though it was more like a whisper.

She sighed and twisted on her helmet. “I’m ready. Open the airlock.”

————————- 

**BRUCE.**

Death, Bruce thought, was something he could get used to.

He was drifting in a thick black fog, unbroken only by the soft glow surrounding his body. A comfortable numbness washed over him, like the gentle pull of an ocean tide. It was as if he were floating out in space once again—only this time there was no suit encasing him, no tether connecting him to the safety of the ship. Death had permitted him to be a star: bright and beautiful and unfeeling, and no longer hostage to a cell of skin and bones. And the parasite…  _God_ , he was finally rid of it. He did it. The crew was safe, and he did it. Finally,  _finally_ , he could rest.

Death, apparently, was too much of a kindness.

Feeling gradually seeped back into his limbs, flowering out from his chest and blooming into his fingertips, burning white-hot like a star about to go supernova. Colors danced sickeningly bright within his vision, disorienting him and making his head spin. It was as if the strand of his consciousness was pulling him back into reality, back into the waking world.

Back to the parasite.

 _No,_  he thought.  _No, please, God, no…!_

And suddenly he was falling, faster, faster, much too fast to possibly survive.

He blinked his eyes open, and groaned.

He was back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please consider leaving a comment if convenient, and feel free to check me out on tumblr @autistic-thor, or check out my blog on this whole Space AU shebang, @thorbrucespaceau. Thanks! <3


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